Heart We Will Forget Him
by wistfulthoughts
Summary: New Moon Midrash - As Bella sits in her English class after Edward has left her, the teacher assigns the class a poem to read by Emily Dickinson and plays a song for the class.


**Heart We Will Forget Him**

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**Disclaimer: Emily Dickinson owns the poem, Laura Farnell owns the music, Stephanie Meyer owns the book and Summit owns the movie. Lucy Maud Montgomery owns Anne and all of us own Greek mythology.**

**Midrash is a Jewish method of interpreting biblical stories that fills in many gaps left in the narrative regarding events and personalities that are only hinted at.**

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**Prologue ~*~ New Moon Midrash**

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Edward has left. Bella sits alone in her English class. The teacher assigns this poem by Emily Dickinson and plays this song:

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**Poem**

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Heart! We will forget him!

You and I -- tonight!

You may forget the warmth he gave --

I will forget the light!

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When you have done, pray tell me

That I may straight begin!

Haste! lest while you're lagging

I remember him!

_Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)_

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**Song**

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http://www (dot) youtube (dot) com/watch?v=1EXnUanOkvQ&feature=related

_Music composed by Laura Farnell_

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**Heart We Will Forget Him **

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I sat in my truck, staring at the steering wheel, trying to summon the motivation to get out and go to class. The first bell had just rung, but nothing drew me toward the buildings. There was nothing for me here. Despite all my dreams, they were not going to return. He was gone and there would never be anything for me again.

I sighed and rested my head back just once more before getting out of the car. It was like dragging leaden weights; the effort it took to lift my backpack onto my shoulder and to place my feet one in front of the other. I knew without looking up that the dark sky threatened more substantial rain, but for now there was just a slow patter of drops dancing in the puddles at my feet.

I pushed through the door to first period, English with Mr. Berty, and made my way to my seat without actually looking at anyone. I was mostly oblivious to the others around me. Their conversations were like static, the buzzing I just ignored and their faces blurred since my focus was always elsewhere.

Odd really, how life goes on. When it shouldn't.

Even when every minute is excruciating, time still passes. The sun keeps on rising and setting whether I fail in geometry or not. Anne of Green Gables had it right. I think I'd rather it did not go on if I failed. But she got her happily ever after, her Gilbert. I was the failure. I wasn't enough. He didn't love me anymore. My world shattered, but the universe just kept on going, unconcerned. I exist in an indifferent world.

It destroyed me when he left. Now I am a ghost, floating through this life, a pale shadow of my former self. I even felt invisible. Walking through the halls at school with my eyes always downcast is a recipe for disaster given my lack of grace, but the sea of students always seemed to part for me as if they too sensed that I was not really one of the living. I drift through the days in a kind of limbo; my chance at heaven was lost and yet I continue to exist. It really is a bit of a shock that this kind of pain and grief doesn't actually kill you.

I settled into my seat alone at my table in the back corner just after the tardy bell rang and waited for Mr. Berty to begin his lecture.

We had just finished _Animal Farm_ and I was dreading the next unit, almost certainly one of the exhausting romances that made up most of the curriculum. I hadn't minded the Orwellian escape; it had been an easy distraction discussing political ideology with no painful parallels to my own life. It had helped the time pass and if I was incapable of feeling any joy in that, at least it had been bearable.

A packet of stapled papers slid across my desk. I glanced at the title, _19th Century American Poets_, and looked up at the board where Mr. Berty was underlining the names Dickinson and Whitman to emphasize their importance. I listened with half an ear, but my gaze was directed out the wall of windows to the group of fir trees swaying in the wind.

I was vaguely aware that Mr. Berty was gesturing excitedly as he spoke about them as the mother and father of American poetry. How amazing it was that they broke away from accepted conventions, challenging the rules of punctuation and capitalization. But I couldn't care less.

I listened to the praise he heaped upon them with my standard detachment securely in place, protecting me from feeling anything. In my former life, I had interests, hobbies, a quick mind, academic dedication and a personality. Now everything was flat, bland and lifeless, especially me. My lifeline had been cut. Now nothing connected. That Walt Whitman's innovative style heralded the modern poetic age of free verse did nothing to stir me. I couldn't even feign interest in Emily Dickinson's concise wit or originality. The poems he lectured on so passionately were just words on a page.

But then Mr. Berty stopped talking and leaned over his computer, clicking on the mouse.

I froze as hauntingly tender piano music began to play, filling the room with sound. Why was this happening to me? I had not counted on being forced to listen to music. This was a literature class, why did it have to be piano of all things? The sound of those notes had such terrible beauty that all my pain was fresh again, the scars burst open. Raw and bleeding, I sat there exposed.

I was swept back, down into hell, just like Eurydice, doomed never to see the light again. The dead in Hades drank from the river Lethe so they could forget their pain, forget their past. I was doomed to relive mine, right in the middle of my English class. Assaulted by E flat major chords dredging up memories of what once was.

I took a breath and was in his home again, sitting at the bench, listening to him play. I could see Edward's strong fingers gently playing my lullaby. I heard the music. I felt him there next to me. The vision was so real I had to close my eyes, shutting in my tears. My heart was pounding. I could not regain my sense of balance. Those slow drifting notes cut at my very soul.

Mr. Berty chose to play the choral piece as a modern interpretation of the Dickinson poem typed on the front page of our packet, but nothing could have prepared me for intensity of my response. Those words set to that music were like a knife twisting in what was left of my heart. I was powerless to stop it as each delicate arpeggio launched fresh explosions, decimating my defenses.

I was stranded in my seat, surrounded by classmates, unable to escape. I needed to keep it together and clenching the edge of the table with my hands as the music played on just didn't help enough. It was like one of my nightmares, but I was wide awake. I had to bit my lip as I forced myself not to scream out in pain, "No, I won't ever forget!"

_Heart we will forget him you and I tonight_ - The lines were so awful; they filled me with terror. My greatest fear was forgetting him, forgetting Edward.

I refused to accept his promise that it would be as though he never existed. That was too horrible to imagine or ever allow. The memories were terribly painful, but the thought of forgetting was worse. My heart and head refuse to cooperate. They won't let him go. No part of me can relax and peacefully accept that releasing him is the right thing to do. Every bit of my soul fights this. I am still running, crying out his name, pleading with him not to leave. I am forever broken without him.

_You may forget the warmth he gave I will forget the light_– He was my light, my life. I miss him so much. I miss them all. I lost everything when they left. Not just Edward, but Alice and Jasper, Carlisle, Esme, Emmet and even Rosalie. I lost a future, a family, my friends and the love of my life. It overwhelms me. Tears come without stopping now. I can't hold it together when I allow myself to feel the enormity of everything I've lost.

The music shifts to a piano interlude between the verses and I have to be grateful I sit in the back of the room because there is no way I can pretend to be unaffected. Tears stream down my face and my breath catches. Memories of the last time I saw his piano are fixed in my mind. Edward's beautiful piano. What a perfect metaphor. Something so beautiful that brought me so much happiness, destroyed with a single drop of blood. The piano was destroyed, as was so much else, the night of my birthday.

The song crescendos at the line - _I remember him Oh heart_. As I hear it repeated over and over, wave upon wave of pain crashes through me.

_I remember him._ The last line breaks through and I cling to it desperately. I will remember, no matter how much it hurts, because it was real. He was real. I won't let that be taken away too.

I feel like a satellite or moon that has lost its planet and I'm spinning around a vacant center. I still feel the pull of his gravity, but there is nothing there.

Finally, the song ends. I am too shattered to fake normalcy even moments later when the bell rings. The other students all crowd out the door, anxious to see their friends and continue the rest of their day. Even Mr. Berty is packing up papers to take to the office. The classroom empties and I am left forgotten, alone again.

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